Running the Show

Running The Show is as valuable to would-be showrunners as it is fascinating to veterans. Jeff Melvoin offers that rare combination: up-to-themoment accuracy about a changing television landscape and an insightful historical perspective. There's great advice in every chapter. For me, this was the best book on showrunning I've ever read. It's for anyone who wants to run shows or just know how they've been run across the years, even as the medium has changed greatly. It captures the many changes our business has gone through and the larger-than-life personalities and vast challenges one has to navigate and be successful at if you want the dream job of telling stories for TV. -- Greg Berlanti, Executive Producer of over twenty television series, including The Fllight Attendant, All American, You, Supergirl, and others. Jeff Melvoin is the oracle and Yoda of showrunning, and this book demonstrates his decades of hard work and earned wisdom running award-winning one-hour drama series. Melvoin is also the founder of the Writers Guild Showrunner Training Program, now entering its 18th year, guiding hundreds of top showrunners through the unique challenges and rewards of becoming a successful showrunner. Each compact chapter offers his experiences in the trenches, along with practical advice on developing, pitching, selling, getting staffed in a writers room, and, ultimately, running a show -- all with candor, nuance, humility, and humor. -- Neil Landau, Executive Director, MFA in Film, Television, and Digital Media at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Georgia A wonderful ride through the raging waters of creating television. It's a book full of sharp insights, great advice and legitimate wisdom. -- J.J. Abrams, Jeffrey Jacob Abrams, American filmmaker and composer Melvoin has done pretty much everything in this business. And, more fundamentally, thought about everything. I recommend this book for any writer, or aspiring writer. -- David Shore, producer and writer, The Good Doctor, House